What should I do?

[raist0069]

I have Andy's ArcadeVGA card with a D9200.  Was planning on running winXP.  I thought by getting the arcadeVGA and D9200 I was going to get the best emulation experiance.  But with doing some research, it seems the only way to get the best emulation experience is by using Advanced mame.  So here are some questions.

I would love to have the best emulation experience possible.  So first things first, I have to use Advanced Mame which means don't use winXP, go with win98se?  And can I use the ArcadeVGA card or should I go with a different card?  If different, which do you perfer?  I want best, money isn't a matter.  I put too much money into this project to have anything less than best i can get.  Note I will be playing large variety of games, from old simple games to 3d games like Killer Instinct.

Advanced Mame can ruin my D9200?  I don't know much at all how monitors work really.  Is there any documentation that you know of that explains all there is to know about AdvancedMame so I dont ruin my monitor?  I looked at some documentation on their website but didn't go into specifics.  Just scared me when someone mentioned if you don't know how monitors work, don't use advanced mame, you can ruin your monitor.

Is Advance Mame hard to install?  Have to compile? Do some makefile command or some BS?  Would be nice if its as easy as mame32, just unzip and its installed!  I couldnt find step by step instructions how to install.

So what would you do if you were in my shoes.

[JoyMonkey]

Is Advance Mame hard to install?  Have to compile? Do some makefile command or some BS?  Would be nice if its as easy as mame32, just unzip and its installed!  I couldnt find step by step instructions how to install.

I don't know about compiling AdvMame, or anything about ArcadeVGA, but Las Vegas has a great step by step guide on getting Advance Mame up and running on an arcade monitor on his software page here:
http://mame.how.to/
If ArcadeVGA has problems with Advance Mame, most ATI cards seem to work best (they can display the vast majority of resolutions needed by most games in Mame). I'm using an Ati 3D Rage Pro, I think.

[tom61]

Would be nice if its as easy as mame32, just unzip and its installed!

Then why don't you use Mame32 with ArcadeVGA then? With the few boards I've tried, I couldn't tell the difference between the real boards, and Mame running on the ArcadeVGA.

But with doing some research, it seems the only way to get the best emulation experience is by using Advanced mame.

If you really want to run Advanced Mame you can run it with the ArcadeVGA, you can get the needed changes to Advanced mame's .rc config file to get it run (the automatic configuration utils bomb on the arcadevga for some reason).

The reason Advanced Mame is so hard to set up is that it is customised to your monitor and hardware exactly, you can't even run someone else's .rc file from what I understand. This is how it gets 'perfect' emulation.

IMO, it provides little benefit over/with the ArcadeVGA, the only features that don't concern arcade monitor usuage, can be found in other unofficial Mame compiles like Analog+ Mame.

Advanced Mame can ruin my D9200?

No, it could easily damage a regular arcade monitor, though (if one was not using a J-Pac). The D9200 has built in protection of incompatable modes like a regular PC monitor does.

So what would you do if you were in my shoes.

Hmm... money no object, wanting perfect results. I'd buy the real thing!

[raist0069]

Then why don't you use Mame32 with ArcadeVGA then? With the few boards I've tried, I couldn't tell the difference between the real boards, and Mame running on the ArcadeVGA.

Mame32 and ArcadeVGA is probably what I am gonna end up with.  

I don't know about compiling AdvMame, or anything about ArcadeVGA, but Las Vegas has a great step by step guide on getting Advance Mame up and running on an arcade monitor on his software page here:
http://mame.how.to/

Thanks for the link JoyMonkey.  It told me what I wanted to know exactly what I needed to install etc.  But unfortunately, after I was done reading, I had a million questions.

I like how the games look on this pc so I should be very happy with ArcadeVGA + D9200 + Mame32.